Fragments From Floyd

or "Old Dog -- New Stick"

Poor fellow. I have to admire his enthusiasm. City dweller, no doubt, and not to be faulted for his ignorance in the finer points of country living. Can't blame him for wanting to make himself a hiking stick. He may need it tomorrow, depending on which hike he's chosen from the offerings at the Naturalist Rally here at Mt. Rogers. But I had to stifle a laugh. Look there. He's gone to the trouble to cut the thing to length and strip the bark off, but he left branch stubs top and bottom. Maybe he's just in a hurry to get done with it. It looks a sight, I must say, but to each his own.

The next day, as we gathered round our respective event leaders, there was this young bearded fellow with the deformed hiking stick. He was one of the leaders for the "Invasive Plants" trip. Turns out, he's no city dude at all. Matter of fact, he knows his plants better than I do, and makes his living protecting natural areas. So after we'd made our acquaintances and spent a couple of hours together finding and recording Multiflora Rose and such near Konnarock, I just had to say something about the stick.

"So. What kind of wood did ya use for your stick?" I asked, so as to ease into my REAL question.

"It's a piece of ash" he said, but no more.

"You been working on it long?" In other words, are you going to leave those obnoxious nubs sticking off it or finish it properly like a real hiking stick ought to be?

Then he explained. And this old dog hushed.

"I met an oldtimer way back in Bland County last summer had a stick like this. I just had to ask about it, seeming it was so for a purpose. He said he'd never have any other kinda stick that'd do him any good. That two-stobbed kind was good for all sorts of things a straight stick wasn't. Look here."

"This bottom branch is really useful. Watch this" and my friend walked over to a blackberry cane arching across the path. He put the cane in the notch formed by the three-inch sidebranch, twisted the stick, and the briar-covered vine snapped in two. "Or you can use it to hold up branches so you can get under them. Great for backpacking through Rhododendrons. Can't do that with a straight stick." And, if you turn the stick upsidedown, so the other sidebranch is coming back toward you, you can pull down those big, fat blackberries just out of reach otherwise. If it's a good stout stick, you can even use it to hook around a tree and pull yourself up a steep or slippery slope! Makes a great way to hang your stick up on a tree branch rather than resting it against something. Won't fall down and get lost."

Ahem. I am humbled by country wisdom overlooked these many years of toting my relatively useless one-trick-pony stick. So yesterday, I set off with a pruning saw to find my own "berry stick." It is harder than you might think to find one with just the configuration pictured here. In the process, I looked at trees and branches through a different lens. Witch Hazel, cherry, and spicebush tend toward branchy-ness I was looking for, but I couldn't attest to strength except for the cherry. But what I ended up finding, not really a surprise, was a fallen, dead but not rotten length of Rhododendron.

I field-tested it late yesterday afternoon up along the logging road where the bristling berry vines hang menacingly across the path, and the ripe berries hang just out of reach overhead or out where the hillside falls off sharply. I confess, I got a little obnoxious. One or two too many "Hey! Watch what I can do" and "Betcha can't do THIS with your stick." I may not get invited on the next berry-picking excursion.

But eventually, I'll calm down. I don't know if I'll bother carrying my old favorite wimpy pole of a stick any more, even though it's been with me for almost twenty years. My new one looks like an unfinished work in progress, but it works like a Swiss Army knife. And this old hound has fetched himself a new stick.